This invention relates to the treatment of viral infections. In a particular aspect this invention relates to treatment of an animal infected with a herpes simplex virus or poliomyelitis virus, or Coxsackie or vaccinia viruses.
Infections caused by herpes simplex are painful to the host but are difficult to treat and although effective vaccines have been developed to protect an animal from poliomyelitis virus (hereinafter referred to as poliovirus), there is no known therapy for animals which do become infected.
Herpes genitalis infections, once rare, have recently become much more common in the contemporary social climate. Some authorities suspect that this virus may be the cause of some types of cancer. The infection is difficult or impossible to cure and can be passed on to infants at birth. Consequently the need for a method of treating this disease is becoming ever more important.
It is known from Experientia 29, 1442-43, 1559-1561 (1973) and 30, 1272 (1974) that 2-amino-4,6-dichloropyrimidine is effective to inhibit the growth of poliovirus in vitro by interfering with the intracellular assembly of the viral particle. It acts at the stage of capsid precursors, impairing structural protein VPO formation. This compound has proved ineffective for treating virus infections, however, because amino acids such as crysteine, cystine and glutamine, which are also present, interfere with the pyrimidine. Accordingly there exists a need for preventing this interference.